


to pray is to accept defeat

by skatedaddy



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, maggie is french, mentions of abuse, morally questionable, richie can't win, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 09:06:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12503876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatedaddy/pseuds/skatedaddy
Summary: Henry Bowers was a bully. He was rude, cruel, and violent. He hated Richie Tozier, and Richie couldn't stand him. It was as simple as that.Until Butch Bowers starts dating Margaret Tozier, and suddenly it wasn't so simple anymore.





	to pray is to accept defeat

**Author's Note:**

> the fucked up brady bunch story no one asked for but you're all getting anyway.
> 
> morally questionable bc henry and richie are in that weird grey area where it's not like it's incest if they hook up but it's still weird?? like very quasi-incest. this chapters short because i wanted to get the idea out there but have to study for my psychology test tomorrow so i couldnt spend a lot of time on it ;_; 
> 
> the characters are like 17 in this story. there will be teenage hormones but no graphic smut or anything. additional tags to come so keep reading the notes
> 
> ** also this is a slight au where henry is an asshole and a bully but not completely psychotic and didn't kill anyone lmao

Richie Tozier couldn’t believe this was happening. Really, it seemed impossible. None it felt real. It was like he had gone to sleep and had woken up in a different universe, one exactly identical to his own, except that his mom has gone absolutely insane. Here she was, standing in front of the mirror primping, getting ready for her big date with _Butch Bowers._

Richie felt like screaming, really. He watches with a frown as she applies her eyeliner, feeling the knot in his stomach pull tighter and tighter the closer she comes to being ready. If she notices that he’s upset, she doesn’t say anything. Richie highly doubts she’s worried about him at all, or really gives a damn what he thinks one way or the other, because she was selfish and that was just the kind of person she was. Richie, on the other hand, is very concerned, because Butch Bowers was the father of _Henry Bowers_ , and _Henry Bowers_ had been making his life a living Hell since Richie was in the second grade.

Okay, maybe living Hell is a little dramatic- but still, Henry was no easy person to get along with. He was a cruel bully, and his favorite target had always seemed to be Richie and his friends. Whether it was smashing Richie’s glasses with his fist or a headbutt, or rubbing Stan’s face with snow til it bled, he always seemed to have it out for them. Richie did his best to avoid Henry at all costs, especially since his constantly running mouth often landed him in trouble with the older boy. Now, his mother was ruining all that, and she didn’t care at all, despite all the hemming and hawing Richie had done when he had first learned about the date. 

She sprays herself down with some perfume, the nice kind, the kind from the glass bottle with the puffy thing you squeeze to make the mist come out. Richie doesn’t think he’s seen her put that on since before her divorce with his father, and something about it scares him, gives him an uneasy feeling, more-so than he already had. His mother really seemed to be looking forward to this date- how serious was she taking this? And how _far?_ He pictures a Brady Bunch scenario with him and his mother and Butch and Henry Bowers, but it isn’t funny and he can’t find it in him to laugh. He think he’d honestly rather die.

She finished applying the last of her lipstick and finally turns to him, addressing him for the first time since she had planted in front of the mirror. “Now, Richard,” she tells him. “Mommy probably won’t be back home til late tonight. After dinner we’re going to zee bar.”

Richie groans. He doesn’t want to hear what she plans on doing with Butch, doesn’t want to think about a creep like that with his mom. The back of his mouth tastes like vomit. “I still don’t think you should go,” he tells her, for the hundredth time. “His son Henry is an asshole. You know he bullies me, right?”

“Sweetheart, I know zis’ is hard for you. I know you miss your father. But Mommy has to move on, she has to get back out ‘zer,” she says, wistfully, beginning to rummage through the coat closet for her good jacket. Richie feels like crying at this, not because she’s right but because she missed his point so entirely. This has nothing to do with his father. His dad had left, he had walked out on the family a year ago now and had run off to Portland, Oregon with his dental assistant. That had been his choice, and even if it stung Richie in a way he couldn’t understand and wouldn’t admit to, the anger and sickness he was feeling right now had absolutely nothing to do with his father and absolutely everything to do with Henry Bowers; but his mom just wouldn’t understand.

“Henry Bower’s is the one who broke my glasses last year, remember, when the piece of glass scratched my eye? He’s the one who knocked out my tooth.”

“Richard,” She inhales sharply, looking over at her son as she slides her coat on. “Can you just please try and be happy for me?” 

For a second Richie just stares at her, and then he gives up, defeated. She wasn’t going to listen to him, she didn’t care what he had to say, and nothing he could do could prevent the inevitable. She was going to go out on a date with Butch Bowers, whether he liked it or not. 

He hears the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and knows the man in question has arrived. His mother blows him a kiss before flitting out the door, and suddenly the house feels very empty. He sinks down on the couch and buries his face in his hands, praying to whatever god’s will listen than his mother has a horrible time on her date. Maybe she’ll even end the whole thing early, come home in tears and take a hot bubble bath with a bottle of wine and make Richie sit just outside the door while she laments her problems with men to him. Maybe, he thinks. If he’s lucky.

(He’s not. Maggie Tozier doesn’t stumble home until almost three in the morning, when Richie is already in bed. He can hear her giggling, and the sound of a man’s voice. He can hear a rhythmic rocking noise coming from her bedroom, and quickly smashes a pillow over his ears, fighting back the urge to throw up.)

\---

Henry Bowers, on the other hand, was no happier than Richie to find out who his father would be courting that night. “Maggie Tozier?” He had asked, a bit dumbfounded. “The faggot’s mom?”

“Now, Henry, you need to watch the way you talk,” his father had reprimanded. “Maggie is a fine woman and I’m sure her son is just fine, too.”

Well, Henry couldn’t argue that Maggie was a fine woman. She was a bit washed up, and it was a known fact around town that she had a drinking problem, but she was still beautiful. She had a lovely body, a pretty, foreign face, and, despite many years of living in the states, still retained her thick French accent. Even Henry had to admit she was probably out of his father’s league, but he couldn’t understand how a woman like that could have a son like Richie Tozier.. The very fact that he _was_ her son is what ruined Maggie Tozier in his eyes. 

“You don’t understand,” Henry gripes at his father. “Her son is really gay. He hangs around with the jew and the stuttering freak. He probably blows them.” Butch just sighs. 

“Henry, I’m not going on a date with her _son._ And neither are you, so don’t worry about whether he’s a faggot or not, okay? You just better be nice to him from here on out. I’m trying to get some puss. Don’t fuck that up for me.” 

“But Dad-”

“Do you want the back of my hand?” Butch snaps, and Henry grumbles a bit but goes silence. “Good. Like I said, Henry, you better be nice to that boy.”

As Henry watches his father leave, he can’t escape the feeling of tension that seems to be tightening all the nerves of his body. Henry Bower’s doesn’t pray, but he certainly finds himself wishing and hoping with every ounce of his being that the date goes poorly, or maybe even that Margaret will stand his father up, and his father will come home and get drunk and ramble on about how she’s a whore anyway and how her son is a gross little faggot. Yes, he thinks. Maybe he’ll get lucky.

(He doesn’t. Henry waits up all night for the sound of the front door opening but his father doesn’t come home. Part of him hopes his father had gotten arrested, or maybe in a car accident, but he’s pretty sure he knows where his father is and it’s not in a jail cell or a hospital, it’s in Margaret Tozier’s bed. He feels sick.)


End file.
